


Absolution

by closedcartridge



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Godly figures, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Religious Analogies, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24242920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closedcartridge/pseuds/closedcartridge
Summary: "Some people are born holy. Others aren’t. Some people are born to seek redemption, and your every moment asks if you’ve done enough to redeem yourself."One by one, Shadow Weaver took her prodigies into her arms and crafted them in her image.This is an exploration of the way in which Shadow Weaver took in each of the children she tutored and manipulated them, and the way in which she became both a parental and a godly figure to them. It explores their dedication, and the depths that her manipulation manages to reach within them. Theoretically set just before the end of s4 - mostly it explores the way in which the characters relate to her.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	1. Worship (Micah)

Worship: Micah

From the moment you had stumbled into her grasp, a wide eyed child, you had been at her command. You came to her, willingly and in awe, and so she valued you. Made you feel special. Let you dedicate yourself to her; follow her every step, her every word, let her take your power and use it to extend herself into something stronger. Because it showed that you could do it, too. That you could be something special like her.

Desperate to prove that you were worthy of her attention.

Of her creation. Of her deliberate, quiet sculpting of the perfect disciple, her hands guiding yours.

“ _First, you must promise to do exactly as I say_.”

You didn’t need to answer. It was less a request, more a promise, and you gave yourself to this promise willingly. Desperate to be something more than the die had cast. Desperate to be _something_.

Dedication is infectious, oppressive, formed in the dark of admiration in the halls of Mystacor; damned by the strongest sorcerer to walk them. And you followed, earnestly, because it was the only path you saw. Admiration that grew from hero worship to affection, to the need to impress. Back to worship again, strengthened by the knowledge of your idol.

A child at the heels of his god. Desperate to impress her, to prove that you were worth looking at. To prove that you were the right choice after all.

Because with her, it was never really a certainty. You had to be a good child, obedient. Value came at the cost of being a good spellcaster. Value was not inherent. And if you were nothing before she took you in (and of course, you were. She knows that, too), you would be nothing again if she chose to cast you out.

But that didn’t matter, because right now her attention was focused on you, her praise singing, and that was all that mattered.

She valued you now. 

Her word is gospel.

You miss the envy in her eyes, mistake her schemes for dreams and plans. Miss the venom in her voice when you out perform her, because it was never enough to kill you. And when her light started to snuff out yours, make it part of her own, you were too close to see it. It wasn’t _your_ light any more, it was hers. You were hers.

Praise sounds like music, and when you follow her instructions, you are worth something. Special. 

You walk two steps behind her because it would be sin to walk by her side.

Her dogma becomes your words, falling out of your mouth in waves because it has to be true.

Taking her hand and letting her walk you down a doomed path. And when you realise it’s consuming you, it’s too late to stop. Your feet pounding the ground as you sprint to keep up with her, the only light in the narrowing corridor. No turning back. 

Her evil is a part of you before you can refuse it.

And when you betray her, the sacrilege kills you. Infinite power choking you as you abandon your post, abandon your god, and leave her to your horrors.

And it’s your fault. 

And it was always your fault.

She took you and she took your power and she used you for her own, taking your hands and forcing them against the people who raised you.

“Micah, how could you?”

Not once did you stop your prayer, not even as she tore your world apart.

And Her disappointment in you makes you shake as you try to expel the evil she wove into you, because evil is something she could never be. You question whether or not you should have just followed her word, done as you were told. 

Because you were always good at doing what you were told, when the order came from her.

Her violence is your fault. It comes from the heart of your betrayal and leaves you screaming, alone, when the others find you.

The nightmares don’t leave. And neither does your faith in her. 

She threatened your life and you gave up all your power to her, a prayer, a desperate call to spare your life. And she did.

One final act of kindness from an angry god.

Her face is there when you close your eyes. And it’s still your fault. 

The fear becomes a mantra. You could have saved her. Because she’s your god, and she has to come back. The darkness is not her, the darkness just has its grip around her heart, and you would have given that up to bring her back. 

Martyred yourself to restore her dignity, put her back on the pedestal you found her on. To prove to yourself that your faith in her was true.

And so you pray.


	2. Confession (Catra)

Confession: Catra

Your whole life, you were mundane. You were mundane and she was sacred, shining out above you. There was no need for her to care for you, because you were never good enough for her. No one’s daughter, the leftover elements of something much truer.

Each day you check yourself for evidence of your sin, of your betrayal and find nothing. It has never been a case of your mistakes, outside of the mistake of the consequences of your birth. Irrelevance was written into your blood, and you were the bearer of that guilt.

Some people are born holy. Others aren’t. Some people are born to seek redemption, and your every moment screams for help, asks if you’ve done enough to redeem yourself. 

Paranoia in a careless whisper, hushed against your skin.

Because her punishment is love. She runs her hand down your cheek, the same hand that threw you across the room, the same hand that taught you what to expect when you made mistakes. And her touch is still love.

You’re not sure if you love her. Every time part of you wants to fight against her, the rest of you wants to worship her again. Wishes for her hand on your cheek. 

For her to tell you that you’ve done a good job. That she’s proud of you.

Or maybe just for her to tell you that you weren’t a mistake.

But she knows you too well.

She knows your weakness, knows everything about you. And yet god’s hand doesn’t cast you out, it just condemns you to rot in your inadequacy, choking on your own mistakes.

Your time in confession is never long enough.

It’s hard to apologise for an entire life when you have the nerve to continue living it. Your whole life, you’ve lived to serve, but it’s never been enough. She has never been happy with you.

The second choice, always the sinner.

And now, you’re starting to realise what she has sculpted you into.

The nature of your worship is that you follow her existence to the letter, and she has cast darkness into you. And you don’t care. Because darkness is all you were ever good for, and this has been fed to you in a chant your whole life.

And when you rebel you expect to look into the eyes of a god and see fear.

But all you see is disappointment. 

And it makes you want to fall again. 

But she will never cast you out of hell, because you don’t have enough value to her for her to waste energy on you.

“Get back in your place,” she tells you.

But your place has been carved out of the shadows that she left behind. The scraps she left in her wake, that you scrambled and fought for. And you won’t die, not at the eye of disapproval from your god. Because you are used to it now.

The strength of her power is dulling. 

Because she never taught you anything, not really, except for how to survive. How to rot from the inside out and keep breathing. 

Because you’re rotten.

That’s what she taught you.

Her hands pinched and twisted and molded you into a twisted reflection of her, and she was all that you’d ever known. 

So when you crawl to her, rotting and burning and choking, you know that your god might not be pleased, but you know that you have learnt who you are supposed to be. 

You are the desperation hidden behind every prayer, the darkness she shielded her other children from. And you are weeping.

Weeping against the floor, a child alone in the echochamber of weapons. Because you cannot reject your god. She has sewn herself inside of you, and each of your movements are pre-calculated by her hand.

You were never sure if choice was a mercy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo hope y'all are enjoying the religious analogies, this chapter was my favourite to write. I love Catra a lot, she deserves someone to hug her and tell her that she's worth so much


	3. Devotion (Adora)

Devotion: Adora

She sees your sin. Even now, she sees your sin. Her perfect weapon, crafted over years and bent into shape, into angles your body couldn’t take but had to. She coaxed you through life with a gentle hand and a poisonous tongue, but it wasn’t something that you were supposed to worry yourself with, because she loved you.

The favour of a god is a nasty thing to keep.

Her hand is gentle as it coaxes you, drags you and moulds you.

Gently, she pries your wide-eyed wonder from your chest and presses it into your hands. 

“ _ You’re responsible for this _ ,” she tells you, and the weight of it rested heavy on your shoulders. Because for your whole life you were her perfection, sick and twisted and diseased.

Her eyes watch you from the mirror.

You are sacred, and you are nauseous. Every one of your steps is a crusade, a twisted banner that calls your name, knows your cruel nature. Even now, a hundred miles away, she stares back at you in the middle.

If God makes us in our image; you are damned that you are indistinguishable from her shadow.

Of course, you fight. That’s all you ever do.

Fight and fight and pray until words tumble, a curse and a prayer over your lips, because it is  _ not enough _ . 

In the dirt, on your knees, scrambling for something holy, you have not done enough.

Your god is sin and light and with one, devout hand, she crushes the home that you have made for yourself. Her love burns. It’s a toxin that runs through your skin. So desperately and inseparably a part of you.

So you spit her poison from your damned lips but it is never enough.

A weapon of her approval, of her love.

A weapon needs a handler, someone to control it and utilise it. When you untethered yourself you fell from grace; wings burnt up and cold without one hand against your cheek, against your neck, your fragility no longer in her hands.

Shattering when you hit the ground, your prayer was lost.

Life is far, far louder without a constant hymn muttered under your breath. Sounds get clearer, and for the first time you really hear birdsong. It’s foreign and wrong and so far from Her that it scares you.

But then a hand pulls you out of the depths of this new clarity and you’re dragged to shore.

The mirror shatters behind you and the shards explode.

If the favour of a god is a nasty thing, then the anger is toxic and burns like poison.

Because she knows you already. She knows everything. You shattered with your reflection, and where your god digs her nails into the cracks, you bleed with her.

Your blood is vile. 

It mixes with hers on the floor, runs cold and dangerous into the wells of your cities.

For so long you had been desperate to prove yourself to her, mirroring her with every step you took, and now she is punishing you now you’ve freed yourself.

The confession booth is locked and you kick at its doors because you know that this sin is yours to hold. 

Your friends drink from a chalice, from the poisoned well. 

Blood soaks their teeth as they choke on your poisoned, toxic lifeline. 

And it is your fault as your sins water the plants of your world.

Death lies in your wake, and she is approving of you.

Even as a heretic, you are devoted.

You pray to a new god now, a new hope, and she is proud of you anyway.

Because you are  _ hers _ , a perfect weapon.

And she is the only one who can wield you.

No matter where you kneel, it is at her feet, and you are at Her mercy.


	4. Belief (Glimmer)

Belief: Glimmer

No, you are not a believer from birth, but worship runs thick in your blood.

Taking your hands in hers, she absolves you of all your past sin. It is hard to ignore the words of a god, the gentle song on her lips that promised you the world. 

Promised you your blood. Promised you peace.

You were dusty and war-torn, coated in a thousand sins and abandonment.

She reached through that and tore away the pain until you shone, shone like you never had before. 

Through your sin, she made you holy.

And this, of course, was your redemption. Your absolution.

Her hands in yours and she created for you. A puppet on her strings she guided you.

She became your god because she has a plan, has always had a plan.

With your hand, she crushed and weeded and pulled until her world was perfect again. You feel sick as the flowers weep in your hands, but then it is still and the earth is quiet and sound.

It is sin, but it is forgiven.

You will sin for her, destroy for her, if she provides you what you need.

At first you had convinced yourself that this relationship was equal.

Now the time comes when you must reap what she has sewn, and the scythe tugs at your skin like it is trying to cut something free.

Heretics dig at your sides and  _ drag _ you away from her light.

They have fallen from her grace and now they want to take you too.

Light is addictive and warm, a barrier away from the shadows.

It is peace.

So you choose to believe in the words of your god.

Your God.

At some point, had she not been just  _ a _ god? The troubles of someone else, some far-flung believes with their eyes turned to the sky rather than the future.

But you saw her in the future, and as you fell, she reached from your hand and forced you back into the light.

Because worship runs deep in your blood.

It is your veins and the space between your breaths.

And when you pray it is because you believe.

She makes you feel special.

With her you are needed, and important, finally shining out in amongst all that is holy.

Rifling through a box of blunted knives you were dull but poised with potential in the middle. She sharpened you; carved you and refined you.

Now you are a missionary, devoted and strong in your belief.

If you are anything, it is because she reached inside of you and tore out your heart. When you held it in your hands you could feel it beat.  _ She gifted you yourself _ .

It would be wrong to deny a gift from Your God. Yours and your father’s before you.

Hereditary sinners, but hereditary saints, too.

Potential that only a god could pick at and bring forth.

Her words are your words.

A prayer, muttered, feverish and desperate in the dark.

Rosary between your hands, your prayer is a scream, because for all the praise and love that she brought to you, it cut through deep into the desperation of your circumstances. 

Weak, you are weak, and useless.

Without a god you are nothing.

Without  _ Her _ you are nothing.

She makes you strong. So on your knees you scream your prayers and bring her forth because at your very core you are a believer, and if belief is what it will take to cast out the sin of this world and bring it into clarity then you will make that sacrifice.

A gentle question nags at you.

It asks you if your eyes are on the love of the world, or on the love of being holy for once.

You don’t remember the answer.

But She might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello cool I really hope people enjoyed this regardless of how edgy it was I just really wanted to explore the way in which Shadow Weaver had such a huge impact on these four and the way in which she managed to get under their skin. Consider it a character study of sorts, maybe?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I wrote this before S5 was released actually, and I held back on posting it because I was hoping s5 would provide some extra content for this. It didn't, so here we go!
> 
> So this is sort of closer to poetry than a fic, I suppose, so I guess it's kind of edgy sounding, but I noticed how much Micah worshipped Shadow Weaver as a child, and wanted to explore how that would translate into actual religious analogies. The edge is part of the charm! I've been writing cute stuff for a while, let's have something darker yknow. There's no non-dark way to explore Shadow Weaver. I might make this into a series and add a couple of therapy style fics depending on how much time I have.
> 
> Also this is the first time I've ever written in second person perspective! I hope I did okay - I'm hugely nervous about posting this one because of the content and the edgier tone and the perspective so!


End file.
